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ORRINGTON   LUNT  LIBRARY 

BUILDING 


EXERCISES  AT  THE  OPENING 


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EXERCISES   AT   THE    OPENING 


ORRINGTON  LUNT  LIBRARY 
BUILDING 


SEPTEMBER    26,   1894 


EVANSTON,  ILL. 
PUBLISHED   BY   THE   UNIVERSITY 


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NORTHWESTERN   UNIVERSITY. 


THE   ORRINGTON    LUNT   LIBRARY    BUILDING. 

The  library  building  is  named  in  honor  of  Mr.  Orrington  Lunt, 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  University,  a  friend  of 
the  institution,  identified  with  its  counsels  and  policy  from  its 
foundation. 

At  an  early  date  in  the  history  of  the  University,  Mr.  Lunt's 
generous  interest  placed  the  Library  in  permanent  association  with  his 
name.  In  the  year  1865,  he  gave  to  the  Trustees  a  valuable  prop- 
erty in  Evanston  as  a  library  endowment ;  this  fund,  in  the  official 
records  of  the  institution,  is  designated  by  the  name  of  its  donor.  In 
1 89 1,  he  crowned  this  earlier  gift  by  the  offer  of  fifty  thousand  dollars 
to  be  applied  to  the  erection  of  a  library  building. 

Better  library  accommodation  had  long  been  one  of  the  Univer- 
sity's most  urgent  needs.  The  Trustees,  accordingly,  promptly 
accepted  Mr.  Lunt's  munificent  offer,  and  at  once  took  steps  to  secure 
the  additional  amount  deemed  requisite  for  a  new  library  build- 
ing. It  appeared  that  a  building,  adequate  to  the  growing  needs  of 
the  institution,  could  be  erected  at  a  cost  of  about  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  and  plans  were  prepared  on  the  basis  of  that 
estimate. 

Generous  subscriptions  were  received  from  friends  in  Evanston 
in  aid  of  the  proposed  expenditure.  Deserving  of  special  acknowl- 
edgment, is  a  contribution  of  five  thousand  dollars  received  from 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  A.  Hatfield,  a  gift  to  the  University  in  memory  of 
her  husband,  Rev.  Robert  M.  Hatfield,  D.D.,  for  many  years,  until 
his  death,  a  trustee  of  the  institution,  and  a  friend  held  in  grateful 
remembrance  for  fruitful  service  of  labor  and  of  influence. 

The  remainder  of  the  amount  required  was  advanced  from  the 
University's  own  resources.     The  construction  of   the  building  was 

3 


begun  in  the  summer  of  1893;  the  work  was  completed  in  the 
summer  following.  A  little  later,  the  new  cases  and  other  equip- 
ments were  put  in  place,  the  books  were  transferred  from  the  old 
library  rooms  in  University  Hall,  and  the  new  building  was  made 
completely  ready  for  use.  The  formal  opening  took  place  on  the 
twenty-sixth  of  September,  1894,  soon  after  the  annual  assembling 
of  the  University  classes. 

DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  LIBRARY  BUILDING. 

The  following  description  of  the  building  from  the  Library 
Journal  is  inserted,  with  revision  in  some  details. 

The  Orrington  Lunt  Library  is  situated  on  the  campus  of 
Northwestern  University,  and  covers  an  area  of  seventy  by  one 
hundred  and  sixty  feet.  The  building  is  planned  so  as  to  admit  of 
future  additions  without  sacrifice  of  exterior  effect  or  interior 
convenience.  The  outer  walls  are  of  buff  Bedford  limestone ;  the 
roof  is  of  red  tile.  The  construction  is  an  employment  of  the 
system  sometimes  called  "  mill-construction  ; "  it  is  believed  to  be 
practically  fire-proof. 

The  style  of  architecture  is  an  adaptation  of  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance. The  outlines  are  simple ;  there  is  little  ornamentation,  but  the 
whole  effect  is  pleasing  and  harmonious.  A  spacious  semi-circular 
portico,  covering  the  entrance,  is  supported  by  six  Ionic  columns  ;  on 
the  frieze,  in  raised  lettering,  is  the  inscription,  "  Orrington  Lunt 
Library."  On  either  side  of  the  vestibule  are  cloak-rooms.  A 
broad  oak  staircase  leads  to  the  second  floor,  where  are  an  assembly 
room  seating  four  hundred  and  eighty  persons,  an  art-room,  and 
seminary-rooms.  The  third  story,  extending  over  the  central  portion 
of  the  building,  is  given  to  offices  and  class-rooms.  The  basement, 
well  lighted  and  thoroughly  finished,  contains  a  large  document  room, 
a  journal  room,  toilet  rooms,  and  other  apartments  not  yet 
definitely  assigned. 

The  main  story  is  devoted  to  the  larger  library  uses.  Occupying 
the  central  section  and  the  adjacent  wing,  is  the  book-room. 
Separated  from  this  room  by  the  delivery-desk  and  the  catalogue- 
cases,  and  occupying  the  remainder  of  the  floor,  is  the  reading-room, 
which  has  an  accommodation  of  one  hundred  and  fourteen  sittings. 


5 

The  windows  are  all  large,  and  placed  above  the  reading-tables  at 
favorable  height  for  light  and  ventilation.  Beneath  the  windows, 
around  three  sides  of  the  reading-room,  are  wall-cases.  In  these 
cases  are  placed,  directly  accessible  to  students,  periodicals  —  both 
the  current  numbers  and  the  completed  volumes  most  frequently- 
consulted —  cyclopaedias,  and  other  reference  books,  and  also  the 
works  reserved  from  time  to  time  for  special  service  by  different 
departments  of  instruction.  The  reading-tables  are  provided  with 
slides  or  extension  leaves.  The  chairs  and  tables,  like  the  entire 
wood-work  on  this  floor,  are  of  oak  in  handsome  finish.  The  wains- 
coting and  the  ceiling  are  elegantly  panelled.  The  entire  floor, 
through  both  the  reading-room  and  book-room,  is  covered  with 
Scotch  cork  carpet. 

Card  catalogue-cases,  made  by  the  Library  Bureau,  stand  at  each 
end  of  the  delivery-desk,  each  case  containing  forty  drawers.  The 
space  under  these  cases  is  utilized  for  locked  cabinets  for  large  illus- 
trated works,  and  the  like.  The  delivery-desk  is  provided  with  con- 
venient drawers.  The  bookcases  in  the  book-room  are  of  such 
height  that  all  books  can  be  reached  from  the  floor.  A  private 
stairway  leads  from  the  book-room  to  the  basement.  All  the  stories 
are  connected  with  the  book-room  by  a  book-lift  and  speaking-tube. 
In  a  central  extension  of  the  building,  are  the  librarian's  room  and 
the  cataloguing-room.  They  are  of  ample  dimensions,  and  are  suitably 
furnished  with  desk,  tables,  cases,  and  a  series  of  locked  cabinets 
with  plate-glass  doors.  Two  safety  vaults  are  also  provided.  The 
heating  is  by  steam  from  a  detached  station.  The  lighting  is  by  gas 
and  electricity.  A  ventilating  system  extends  throughout  the 
building. 

The  capacity  of  the  library  on  the  main  floor,  including  with 
the  book-room  the  reference  cases  in  the  reading-room,  is  nearly 
100,000  volumes.  The  document  room  in  the  basement  will  hold 
upwards  of  25,000  volumes. 

The  wall  decorations  were  planned  and  the  special  designs 
executed  by  Miss  Ida  J.  Burgess,  of  Chicago.  The  frieze  in  the 
reading-room  and  the  book-room  delights  the  bibliophile.  The 
design  includes  thirty-two  panels  of  varying  size  ;  in  each  panel  is  a 
shield  surrounded  by  a  conventional  design,  and  on  the  shield 
appears  some   famous  printer's   mark,  in  such   colors   as   harmonize 


with  the  general  color  scheme.  Here  you  may  look  up  and  see 
Caxton's  mark,  or  that  of  Aldus  Manutius,  or  of  the  Elzevir  family, 
and  so  on.  In  the  vestibule  four  panels  symbolize,  in  characteristi- 
cally draped  figures,  the  four  nations  which  have  most  influenced 
modern  learning — the  Egyptian,  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Roman.  The 
assembly-room  in  the  second  story  is  also  tastefully  decorated. 

The  Architect  was  William  A.  Otis,  of  Chicago.  The  building  is 
believed,  both  in  beauty  of  design  and  in  general  adaptation  to  its 
purpose,  to  do  honor  to  his  professional  taste  and  skill. 


The  exercises  of  the  formal  opening  of  the  Library  took  place 
in  the  afternoon  and  evening  of  the  twenty-sixth  of  September, 
1894.  In  the  afternoon  the  exercises  were  held  in  the  Assembly 
Hall  of  the  Library  Building ;  in  the  evening,  at  the  First  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  Evanston. 

The  following  was  the  Order  of  Exercises  in  the  afternoon : 

INVOCATION  — Rev.   Franklin   W.  Fisk,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President  of   Chicago 
Theological  Seminary. 

VOCAL   SOLO  —  MR.    KARLETON   HACKETT. 

ADDRESS   OF   PRESENTATION  — Mr.  Orrington  Lunt. 

ADDRESS   OF   ACCEPTANCE  — President  Henry  Wade  Rogers,  LL.D. 

VOCAL   SOLO — MR.   KARLETON    HACKETT. 

DEDICATION   ODE  — Mrs.  Emily  Huntington  Miller. 

ADDRESS  —  Charles  Kendall  Adams,  LL.D.,  President  of  the  University  of 
Wisconsin. 

benediction. 


r^ff  N'itiiTi'^d]  Ka^aiine 


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ADDRESS     OF     PRESENTATION. 
By  Mr.  Orrington  Lunt. 

The  possession  and  use  of  a  Library  have  always  appeared  to 
me  a  fundamental  condition  of  intellectual  advancement ;  and  over  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago  I  laid  aside,  and  gave  to  this  institution, 
certain  property  as  a  fund  for  a  library  endowment.  The  erection  of 
a  suitable  building  seemed  then  a  long  way  off,  a  realization  I  could 
hardly  count  upon  seeing. 

It  is  a  great  happiness,  therefore,  to  me  to-day,  to  look  about 
upon  this  completed  work,  and  to  believe  that  here,  for  many,  many 
years  to  come,  the  best  thoughts  of  men  will  be  found ;  and  that  all 
that  those  of  us  who  are  passing  off  the  stage  could  desire  to  say  to 
the  youth  here  gathered,  will  be  better  said  to  them  through  books 
whose  influence  for  good  is  not  measured  by  our  brief  years. 

The  eminent  librarian,  our  lamented  fellow-citizen,  Dr.  William 
F.  Poole,  one  of  our  trustees,  and  a  member  of  our  Building  Com- 
mittee, in  an  address  delivered  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society, 
spoke  to  us  words  on  this  subject  that  ought  not  to  be  forgotten. 

Books,  he  told  us,  are  the  tools  of  his  profession  to  a  literary 
and  scientific  worker ;  the  library  should  be  his  class-room  and 
laboratory.  "All  who  go  forth  as  graduates  should  have  such  an 
intelligent  and  practical  knowledge  of  books,  as  will  aid  them  in  their 
studies  through  life  and  make  the  use  of  books  a  perpetual  delight  and 
refreshment.  Books  are  wiser  than  any  professor  and  all  the  faculty ; 
and  they  may  be  made  to  give  up  much  of  their  wisdom  to  the 
student  who  knows  where  to  go  for  it  and  how  to  extract  it.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  delightful  and  inspiring  incidents  in  a  student's 
experience  when  he  discovers  that  he  has  a  key  to  the  treasury  of 
knowledge,  and  so  finds  that  he  has  a  function  in  life." 

I  am  happy  to  believe  that  this  Library  will  effect  its  end,  in 
advancing  scholarship  in  this  institution  of  learning,  in  aiding  in  the 
defence  of  high  principles,  and  in  offering  opportunities  for  earnest 
research  and  the  honest  pursuit  of  truth.  Whatever  is  attacked  or 
defended  by  the  written  word  is  assigned,  as  time  goes  on,  to  its  own 


8 

place.  That  which  is  personal,  small,  and  intolerant  soon  dies ;  and 
only  what  is  rational  and  noble,  in  the  hard  struggle  for  truth, 
survives,  to  wield  eventually  its  just  power,  unfettered  and  free.  We 
want  to  learn  what  books  are  for,  and  how  to  use  them ;  we  want  to 
lay  the  foundations  for  scholarly  traditions.  If  we  collect  here  what 
is  good  in  letters  and  true  in  authority,  may  we  not  justly  hope  that 
capacity  to  appreciate  and  appropriate  will  grow  by  what  it  feeds  on, 
and  that  our  students  will  not  fail  of  wise  training,  and  ennobling 
culture  ? 

From  long  experience  among  you,  fully  in  touch  with  your 
ambitions  and  efforts,  I  know  well  how  you  as  a  Faculty  have 
striven  to  open  the  minds  of  your  students  to  the  high  inspiration  of 
literature,  and  the  noble  challenge  of  science.  I  know  how  hard 
some  of  you  now  before  me  have  labored  through  all  these  years, 
notwithstanding  discouragements  sufficient  to  break  down  any  but . 
the  loftiest  purpose,  that  this  University  might  better  realize  its  ideal, 
and  become  established  upon  enduring  foundations. 

Having  been  one  of  the  charter  members,  and  a  trustee  from  its 
beginning,  you  will  all  bear  me  witness  that  I  have  watched  the 
course  of  our  beloved  institution  with  deep  interest  and  constant 
loyalty.  Unused,  as  I  am,  to  public  speaking,  this  association  of 
years  furnishes  my  only  reason  for  consenting  to  address  you. 

We  have  given  in  love  and  labor  what  we  could.  It  rejoices  me 
that  we  can  meet  on  this  afternoon  and  evening,  happily  conscious 
that  we  are  all  working  together  for  one  end ;  and  that  the  erection 
and  equipment  of  our  Library  is  but  a  further  step  in  our  united 
effort  to  maintain  here  an  institution  of  the  first  rank,  and  more 
largely  engage  and  justify  the  affection  and  sympathy  of  our 
graduates. 

It  has  been  our  desire  and  ambition  to  have  a  substantial  and 
commodious  building,  which  should  be  a  center  of  activity  in  our 
University.  We  owe  a  lasting  debt  to  our  conscientious  and 
accomplished  Architect,  Mr.  William  A.  Otis,  who  has  put  into  this 
beautiful  form  what  we  hope  will  fulfill  its  promise  to  all  student  life 
here,  and  prove  a  general  source  of  helpfulness  and  inspiration.  His 
watchful  personal  attention  has  been  invaluable  in  producing  the 
harmony,  solidity,  convenience,  and  general  excellence  of  this 
structure ;  we  take  pleasure  in  assuring  him  of  our  appreciation.     I 


9 

want  to  tell  him,  individually,  that  the  building  has  become  very  dear 
to  me,  and  that  it  seems  beautiful  in  my  eyes.  I  look  around,  and 
remember  that  we  have  the  Christian  warrant,  that  all  that  brings 
beauty  and  graciousness  into  our  human  life  is  a  power  for  good  in 
human  character. 

There  seem  to  me  to  have  been  great  thoroughness  and  pains- 
taking in  the  fulfillment  of  contracts ;  and  to  one  going  in  and  out 
among  them  almost  daily,  the  artists  and  workmen  have  appeared 
especially  faithful  in  meeting  responsibility.  To  recognize  this,  and 
publicly  tender  thanks  for  it,  is  a  pleasant  duty. 

And  if  I  may  now  speak  a  few  words  to  the  young  men  and 
women  who  are  to  gather  here  that  they  may  gain  strength  and  enthu- 
siasm for  lofty  purpose  and  noble  endeavor,  I  would  earnestly  say  to 
them, — remember  that,  whatever  you  are,  your  chief  effectiveness  in  life 
will  be  due  to  the  high  ground  you  take  ;  that  your  weight  in  advancing 
any  cause  will  be  measured,  in  the  end,  by  your  standard  of  character. 
These  are  your  years  of  apprenticeship.  If  leadership  ever  falls  to 
you,  you  will  need  all  the  inspiration  you  may  receive  here,  and  all 
the  power  and  skill  that  arduous  work  can  give.  Every  consideration 
urges  you  to  make  the  most  of  your  advantages.  The  treasures  of 
the  past,  the  possessions  of  the  present,  and  the  promise  of  the  future 
seem  to  one  of  my  age,  looking  back  upon  many  deprivations  and  an 
entire  lack  of  these  splendid  chances,  to  be  all  yours  for  the  seeking — 
all  within  your  reach. 

I  would  assure  you  that  while  I  still  live  and  pray,  I  shall  still 
hope  and  pray  that  from  the  collection  of  books  made  and  to  be 
made  here,  and  through  your  intelligent  use  of  them,  there  will 
radiate  an  influence  enriching  all  life,  by  elevating,  ennobling,  and 
purifying  it. 

George  William  Curtis  spoke  noble  words,  when  as  a  young  man 
to  young  men,  in  a  dark  hour  of  our  Nation's  history,  he  made  his 
ringing  and  powerful  appeal  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the  down- 
trodden and  enslaved.  He  called,  in  clarion  tones,  upon  generous 
youth  to  arise,  and  answer  by  coiiduct,  to  face  squarely  the  tremen- 
dous issues  of  their  moral  and  intellectual  life,  to  weigh  well  in  the 
balance  the  duties  of  scholars  as  a  class,  wherever  humanity  is 
concerned,  of  whatever  race  or  color.  "  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  the 
scholar  is  the  representative  of  thought  among  men,  and  his  duty  to 


10 

society  is  to  introduce  thought  and  the  sense  of  justice  into  human 
affairs.  He  was  not  made  a  scholar  to  satisfy  the  newspapers,  or  the 
parish  beadles,  but  to  serve  God  and  man.  While  other  men  pursue 
what  is  expedient,  and  watch  with  alarm  the  flickering  of  the  funds, 
he  is  to  pursue  the  truth  and  watch  the  eternal  law  of  justice." 

The  gifted  men  of  our  community  who  constitute  the  faculties  of 
our  colleges,  by  their  suggestions  and  influence,  their  authority  and 
guidance,  will  lead  you  into  new  paths,  and  stimulate  your  love  for 
the  best  things.  Their  whole-hearted  service  to  you  will  reap 
adequate  reward  only  in  your  individual  achievements.  You  can 
justify  their  efforts  by  furnishing  a  reason  for  them  in  your  own 
acquirements  and  usefulness. 

We  cannot  close  without  speaking  of  those  to  whom  we  have 
been  so  largely  indebted  in  the  past.  It  is  fitting,  first,  to  make 
mention  of  that  honored  benefactor  whose  large  and  generous  gift 
of  books  will  keep  him  ever  in  grateful  remembrance.  I  refer 
to  our  late  fellow-citizen,  Mr.  Luther  Greenleaf,  whose  valuable  gift 
to  the  Library  renders  us  ever  his  debtor.  It  is  with  pleasure  I  bear 
testimony  also  to  the  service  of  my  early  associate  trustees,  most  of 
whom  have  gone  to  their  home  beyond.  As  I  review  the  past, 
they  rise  before  me  now  in  sacred  and  sanctified  light.  They  worked 
faithfully — they  were  true  men  ;  the  past  is  made  alive  to  me  to-day 
by  memories  of  labors  and  hopes  shared  with  them.  Yes,  their  works 
have  followed  them.  The  moral  and  religious  lessons  of  lives  like 
theirs  serve  to  encourage  us,  and  lift  us  up  beyond  ourselves,  as  we 
review  them.  You  may  all  take  courage,  when  you  hear  of  those 
who  toiled  for  you  in  that  early  day, — "the  day  of  small  things." 
Remember,  we  have  entered  into  their  labors. 

And  can  we  forget  those  of  clear  intellect  and  dominant  gifts, 
whose  daily  life  and  labor  in  our  midst  fulfilled  the  promise  made  as 
they  in  turn  accepted  the  office  of  President  of  the  University  and 
assumed  its  responsibilities?  We  turn  toward  them  with  loving 
memory,  and  recall  afresh  their  noble  careers  as  incentive  and 
example.  They  walked  worthily, — showed,  in  laborious  and  faithful 
devotion  to  the  cause  of  higher  education,  the  character  of  lofty 
leadership. 

He,  the  great-hearted  one,  who  lies  under  the  sod  in  Rose  Hill, 
who  died  with  all  his  armor  on,  needs  no  fresh  laurel  laid  on  his 


II 


grave.  Dr.  Cummings  illustrated,  by  the  majesty  of  his  life,  the 
great  truth  that  character  is  the  crown  of  crowns ;  and  now  "  he 
sleeps  well."  He  did  not  see  the  light  which  touches,  even  as  the 
sunrise  touches  the  hill-tops,  the  heads  of  the  young  and  ardent 
workers  of  to-day.  Yet  he,  with  us  whose  feet  are  rapidly  nearing 
the  shadowy  valley,  had  hope  of  the  better  things  to  come.  Well  do 
we  all  know,  as  he  knew,  that  all  things  which  are  true  and  honest, 
just  and  pure,  come  from  Him  who  is  the  perfect  beauty  and  perfect 
truth ;  and  so  believing,  we  look  patiently  for  that  revelation  which  is 
to  turn  darkness  into  light,  falsehood  into  truth,  hatred  into  love,  and 
the  whole  earth  from  evil  unto  good ;  and  out  of  errors,  blunders, 
ignorance,  and  crime,  lead  unto  the  perfect  service  of  Him  who  is 
"  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life." 

And  now  to  the  galaxy  before  me,  to  you  who  constitute  our 
hope  and  dependence — you  living  men  of  progress  and  lovers  of 
learning,  you  who  are  engaged  in  the  high  pursuit  of  teaching.^to 
you,  old  and  young,  who  by  association,  example,  and  instruction, 
are  so  largely  contributing  to  our  advancement,  to  you,  President  and 
Professors  of  Northwestern  University,  I  offer  assurance  of  my  pro- 
found esteem,  and  my  cordial  congratulations.  Here  is  the  Library. 
It  is  yours,  with  its  class-rooms,  its  lecture-rooms,  its  books,  its 
periodicals  and  newspapers ;  yours,  with  its  inspirations  and  posses- 
sions, given  to  this  University  in  cheerful  love,  and  in  full  confidence 
that  it  will  be  consecrated  by  patient  industry  and  fruitful  research, 
and  that  the  gift  will  be  multiplied  by  centuries  of  use ;  that  it  will 
enlighten  all  who  come  into  its  studious  and  quiet  atmosphere,  and 
more  firmly  establish  that  which  you  are  aiming  to  teach  and 
embody.  I  pray  in  hope  and  faith  that  it  will  become  a  great  active 
and  potential  force  for  good. 

I  thank  you  all  for  your  patience  and  kindly  consideration.  I 
shall  never  speak  to  you  all  again,  but  I  shall  remember  this  occasion 
with  gratitude,  and  add  the  bright  experience  of  this  day  to  my  most 
treasured  memories. 

Standing  before  you,  where  I  have  so  seldom  stood  in  my  life 
before,  all  unused,  as  I  am,  to  the  platform,  and  wholly  a  novice  in 
public  speaking,  reminded,  as  one  of  my  age  must  constantly  be 
reminded,  of  those  who  have  passed  beyond  our  human  vision 
whither  all  feet  are  surely  tending,  reminiscence  has  had  perhaps  too 


12 

large  a  share  in  my  thought  and  speech.  This  you  will  pardon  to 
my  years.  And  in  closing, —  not  mournfully,  but  rejoicingly, —  I 
quote,  and  may  even  dare  to  appropriate,  a  sentence  of  Carlyle, 
spoken  of  his  father,  whom  he  loved  and  whose  death  left  him 
conscious  of  irreparable  loss,  and  yet  kindled  his  faith  to  exalted 
expression:  "  I,  too,  as  he  did,  feel  my  feet  on  the  Everlasting  Rock, 
and  through  time  with  its  death,  can  to  some  degree  see  into  eternity 
with  its  life." 

Farewell !  May  the  Great  Father  bless  you  all !  May  He  give 
us  all  the  assurance  of  eternal  life,  and  bring  us  eventually  to  perfect 
holiness  and  perfect  love  ! 


ADDRESS  OF  ACCEPTANCE. 
By  President   Rogers. 

The  pleasant  duty  now  devolves  on  me  of  accepting  in  the  name 
of  the  University  the  noble  building  which  has  been  thus  formally 
presented,  and  which  is  to  be  from  this  day  onward  the  beautiful  home 
of  the  library.  In  accepting  this  edifice  I  should  fail  to  represent 
fittingly  those  for  whom  I  speak  unless  I  expressed  to  you,  Mr.  Lunt, 
the  chief  donor,  and  to  the  other  good  friends  whose  generous  contri- 
butions, augmenting  your  gift,  aided  in  the  erection  of  the  building,  the 
gratitude  with  which  the  University  regards  what  you  have  done.  The 
trustees  and  the  faculties,  the  alumni  and  the  students  of  the  Univer- 
sity join  in  an  expression  of  gratitude  ;  and  I  am  sure  they  one  and 
all  honor  you.  Not  only  do  the  friends  of  this  University  applaud 
your  generous  action,  but  the  friends  of  other  Universities,  some  of 
them  represented  here  to-day  by  their  distinguished  presidents,  join 
with  us  in  expressing  their  appreciation  of  the  service  you  have  ren- 
dered to  the  cause  of  learning. 

The  Library  of  a  University  is  "  the  fountain  of  its  intellectual 
power."  A  stranger  coming  here  for  the  first  time,  and  seeking  to 
know  something  of  the  intellectual  life  which  here  abounds,  will  seek 
this  place  first  of  all,  and  will,  in  a  large  measure,  form  his  estimate 
of  the  greatness  of  the  institution  here  established  according  to  what 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


13 


he  shall  find  or  fail  to  find  within  these  walls.  A  great  University 
presupposes  a  great  library.  You  and  those  who  joined  with  you  in 
the  erection  of  this  splendid  building  well  understood  the  truth  of 
what  I  am  saying,  and  you  were  large-hearted  as  well  as  large-brained, 
and  your  generous  action  has  made  it  possible  for  the  University  to 
enter  this  day  on  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  its  development.  We 
had  many  urgent  needs  but  none  so  important  as  the  one  you  have 
supplied.  And  now  let  us  hope  that  other  men  large  of  heart  and 
rich  in  purse,  as  they  look  on  this  which  you  have  done,  may  be  led  to 
emulate  your  example,  and  that  ere  long  other  stately  piles  will  rise — 
a  chapel  large  enough  to  contain  all  our  students  —  a  museum  that 
will  contain  all  our  collections  —  a  gymnasium  suited  to  the  needs  of 
a  university  such  as  ours. 

We  do  not  forget  here  to-day  that  you  are  the  Nestor  of  our 
University  —  honored  in  your  old  age,  as  was  the  aged  hero  of  the 
Greeks,  by  those  who  seek  for  your  advice  because  of  the  wisdom  of 
your  counsel.  Nearly  half  a  century  ago  you  chose  this  place,  then  a 
waste,  to  be  the  seat  of  the  University  you  were  aiding  to  establish, 
and  from  that  day  to  this,  you  have  watched  over  its  destinies  with 
the  devotion  of  a  father  for  a  child  beloved.  We  rejoice  with  you 
that  God  has  spared  your  life  to  see  these  results,  and  we  congratulate 
you  to-day  that  the  University  which  you  helped  to  found  has  grown 
during  your  lifetime  to  so  noble  proportions. 

Some  who  are  before  me  will  remember  the  account  which  Eve- 
lyn has  left  of  his  visit  to  Amsterdam  in  1641,  and  of  how  he  went 
up  into  the  tower  of  the  cathedral  to  note  the  playing  of  the  marvel- 
lous chimes.  The  story  is  that  he  found  a  man  far  below  the  bells 
with  some  sort  of  wooden  gauntlets  on  his  hands  pounding  away  on  a 
key-board.  But  the  proximity  of  the  bells,  the  clanging  of  the  keys 
as  they  were  struck  by  the  wooden  gloves,  and  the  clatter  of  the 
wires,  made  it  impossible  to  hear  the  music  ;  yet  those  farther  away 
heard  the  most  exquisite  harmony  as  it  floated  out  over  the  sea  and 
over  the  city,  and  many  there  were  who  paused  in  their  work  and  lis- 
tened to  the  chiming  and  were  glad.  As  you  have  sat  these  many 
years  in  the  tower  pounding  away  on  the  key-board,  your  ears  per- 
chance may  not  have  caught  a  strain  of  the  music  you  have  been  cre- 
ating, but  let  me  assure  you,  Mr.  President  of  our  Board  of  Trustees, 
that  those   not  so  near  as  you  to  the  rattle  of  the  hammers  and  the 


clangor  of  the  wires  are  to-day  praising  your  name  for  the  music  that 
has  floated  from  the  tower.  They  have  been  listening  to  the  chiming 
and  been  gladdened  as  they  listened. 


DEDICATION  ODE. 
By  Mrs.  Emily  Huntington  Miller. 

Father  of  lights  !  whose  breath  divine 
Moved  through  creation's  ancient  night, 

Each  pulse  of  wakening  life  is  thine, 
All  power  and  wisdom  and  delight. 

All  the  deep  beauty  of  the  earth, 

That  charms  the  eye  or  thrills  the  heart, 

In  Thy  wide  being  had  its  birth, 
Is  of  Thy  wondrous  nature  part. 

Still,  at  Thy  word,  the  silence  breaks 
And  splendors  of  the  dawn  appear  ; 

Still,  from  Thy  hand,  the  clay  awakes 
To  shapes  of  beauty  year  by  year. 

And  still,  in  nature's  changeless  law, 
Thy  voice  we  hear,  Thy  face  we  see, 

And  bonds  of  kindred  upward  draw 

The  souls  that  Thou  hast  made  to  Thee. 

Not  drifting  atoms  in  the  spheres 
Of  blind,  insensate  force  are  we. 

But  born  of  Thine  eternal  years. 

And  linked  with  all  that  yet  shall  be. 

No  thought  of  grandeur  or  of  power, 
No  voice  of  prophet  or  of  sage. 

Dies  with  its  own  brief,  passing  hour, 
But  lives  to  teach  in  every  age. 

The  deeds  heroic  souls  have  wrought 

Shine  down  the  centuries  with  their  light, 

And  rich  with  all  the  years  have  brought. 
We  count  their  treasures  ours  to-night. 


IS 


Not  for  one  dim  horizon's  sweep 

Rose  on  the  world  their  kindling  ray  ; 

Through  widening  skies  their  cycles  keep 
The  constant  planets'  steadfast  way. 

Back  to  the  morn  of  earlier  days 
We  reach  our  reverent  hands  to  find, 

And  crown  with  laurel  of  our  praise, 
The  glorious  Masters  of  the  mind. 

O  bright  immortals  !  wearing  still 
The  light  upon  your  foreheads  set, 

Our  hearts,  with  deep,  responsive  thrill, 
Are  vibrant  to  your  music  yet. 

Down  the  blue  vales  of  Hellas  goes 
Old  Homer,  singing  to  his  Greeks  ; 

And  where  the  Avon  winds  and  flows, 

The  soul  of  Shakespeare  lives  and  speaks. 

Still,  for  all  ages,  Dante  weaves 

His  dream  of  shores  no  foot  hath  crossed, 
And  Milton  in  his  blindness  grieves 

For  every  race  its  Eden  lost. 

The  marbles  wrought  to  shapes  divine 

By  the  great  sculptors'  matchless  powers, 
In  their  unchanging  beauty  shine 
To  link  their  own  bright  day  to  ours. 

Ours  the  proud  story,  graven  deep 
On  rocks  that  front  the  desert  tide, 

Where  the  calm  Sphinx  her  mystery  keeps, 
Unheeding  how  the  centuries  glide ; 

And  theirs,  for  whose  heroic  strife 
No  hand  could  stay  the  sinking  sun, 

Who  gave  the  whole  of  love  and  life, 
And  died  with  all  their  fields  unwon. 

So  speeds  the  long  procession  by, 

So  grows  the  roll,  from  year  to  year  ; 


i6 


So  to  the  souls  that  cannot  die, 

New  shrines  we  build,  new  temples  rear. 

On  swelling  dome  and  springing  arch, 
On  clustered  pillars,  blossom-wrought, 

We  trace  their  grand,  triumphal  march. 
And  grave  the  beauty  of  their  thought. 

Yet,  in  our  highest  thought  to-day, 
Lord  of  all  life !  to  Thee  we  bow  ; 

Stars  of  our  lesser  world  were  they. 
Sun  of  a  thousand  worlds  art  Thou ! 

Make  us  with  heavenly  wisdom  wise  ; 

Teach  us  in  human  powers  to  see 
But  wings  by  which  our  souls  may  rise. 

To  find  their  being's  end  in  Thee. 


ADDRESS    BY   CHARLES    KENDALL   ADAMS,    LL.D., 
President  of  Wisconsin  University, 

President  Adams,   on  being  introduced,  spoke  substantially  as 
follows : 
Mr.  President,  Mr.  Orrington  Lunt,  and  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : 

I  heartily  congratulate  you  on  the  arrival  of  this  auspicious 
day.  It  is  a  bright  day  without  and  a  bright  day  within.  Com- 
ing from  a  University  which  knows  what  it  is  to  have  inadequate 
accommodations  for  a  library,  and  to  long  for  new  and  larger  accom- 
modations, I  speak  not  without  knowledge  that  a  new  and  adequate 
library  building  for  any  university  is  one  of  the  greatest  treasures  it 
can  possess.  The  library,  in  a  large  sense,  may  be  called  the  head  of 
the  institution.  Certainly  it  bears  that  relation  to  the  university  as  a 
whole  in  all  matters  of  material  equipment.  Nor  indeed  can  the 
library  be  called,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term,  material  equipment, 
for  therein  are  stored  the  evidences  of  all  that  has  been  accom- 
plished in  all  the  walks  of  knowledge.  It  is  not  possible  for  any 
institution  to  do  advanced  work  in  any  of  the  fields  of  investigation 
without  having  the  means  at  hand  of  knowing  what  has  been  done  by 


17 

those  who  have  gone  before.  Every  branch  of  knowledge  is  now 
inclined  to  take  a  historical  form.  Every  scientific  man,  if  he  is  to  be 
sure  of  his  ground,  must  know  what  scientific  men  before  him  have 
accomplished.  If  we  scrutinize  the  work  of  those  who  have  done  so 
much  for  the  advancement  of  science  within  the  past  generation,  we 
shall  find  that  the  extension  of  knowledge  even  along  scientific  lines 
is  a  development  from  knowledge  that  has  previously  existed ;  and 
it  is  evident  that  there  is  no  possible  way  of  knowing  what  those 
before  have  accomplished  without  vast  accumulations  of  evidence 
within  the  walls  of  our  libraries.  It  was  not  altogether  strange,  there- 
fore, although  it  was  a  very  impressive  fact,  that  when,  after  the  recent 
Franco-Prussian  war,  the  Germans  decided  in  accordance  with  what 
they  had  done  at  Berlin  and  at  Bonn,  to  celebrate  their  victory  by  the 
establishment  of  a  great  university  in  the  conquered  city  of  Strasburg, 
they  should  decide  to  appeal  to  the  learned  men  in  all  parts  of  the 
world  for  books  with  which  to  establish  a  great  library,  without  which 
they  believed  no  university  could  appropriately  be  established. 
Within  a  very  short  time  more  than  two  hundred  thousand  volumes 
were  brought  together,  and  now  within  little  more  than  twenty  years 
from  the  founding  of  the  University,  the  university  library  of  Stras- 
burg contains  about  four  hundred  thousand  volumes. 

But  great  libraries  in  order  to  be  useful  must  be  accessible  to 
those  who  would  become  acquainted  with  their  contents.  The  day  has 
gone  by  in  which  the  library  is  a  mere  place  in  which  to  keep  books. 
The  business  of  a  library  is  to  render  books  accessible,  to  enable  the 
investigator  after  truth  to  follow  and  to  run  down  easily  any  and  all 
the  information  of  which  he  is  in  search.  In  a  university  library  all 
such  information  should  be  at  the  finger  ends  of  the  librarian,  and 
should  be  made  easy  of  access  to  every  student.  By  such  a  building 
as  this,  students  may  be  said  to  be  tempted  into  the  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge. Though  the  acquisition  of  valuable  knowledge  can  never  be 
made  altogether  easy,  it  is  still  possible  to  adorn  the  avenues  of  learn- 
ing with  such  delightful  associations  and  suggestions  as  to  make  the 
search  in  every  way  agreeable.  This  is  now  felt  to  be  a  necessity  as 
it  has  never  been  felt  before.  Within  the  few  years  past  a  large  num- 
ber of  new  and  commodious  library  buildings  have  been  erected  for 
our  colleges  and  universities.  Kansas  University  has  just  completed 
a  large  and  beautiful  building;  the  University  of  Minnesota  is  just 


i8 

completing  a  very  large  structure,  and  the  University  of  Wisconsin 
will  not  be  content  until  from  some  source  adequate  provision  is  made 
for  a  similar  structure. 

There  is  another  reason  why  I  am  particularly  interested  in  the 
opening  of  this  library.  I  feel  a  kind  of  personal  interest  in  the  insti 
tution  owing  to  my  former  relations  with  many  of  those  who  have 
had  to  do  with  the  building  up  of  the  library  here.  In  my  childhood 
days,  far  off  among  the  hills  of  Vermont,  Mr.  Luther  L.  Greenleaf, 
who  made  so  valuable  a  contribution  to  your  library,  was  my  first 
teacher.  Several  years  later,  soon  after  I  began  the  teaching  of  his- 
tory in  the  University  of  Michigan,  one  of  my  pupils  was  the  present 
honored  head  of  this  University ;  and  finally,  besides  having  the 
pleasure  of  teaching  Professor  Young  at  Michigan,  and  Professor 
Stanclift  at  Cornell,  I  had  in  one  of  my  classes  at  Ann  Arbor,  Mr. 
Otis,  to  whose  refined  tastes  you  are  indebted  for  the  architecture  of 
this  beautiful  structure.  So  you  see  there  are  reasons  why  I  should 
feel  quite  at  home  in  this  building.  I  rejoice  to  meet  so  many  of  my 
old  friends  and  pupils  here,  and  I  congratulate  them  all  on  the  com- 
pletion of  this  noble  work.  I  congratulate  the  people  of  Evanston 
that  so  beautiful  a  building  has  been  here  erected.  I  congratulate 
you,  Mr.  President,  that  you  are  now  able  to  offer  so  commodious  a 
building  for  the  uses  of  the  Professors  and  students  of  the  University; 
and,  finally,  I  congratulate  you,  Mr.  Lunt,  that  you  have  found  so 
appropriate  and  so  noble  an  opportunity  for  benefiting  the  students 
of  this  University  and  through  them  for  benefiting  mankind. 

After  President  Adams'  address,  on  invitation  of  the  chairman, 
Hon.  Horace  G.  Lunt,  of  Colorado  Springs,  who  was  formerly 
librarian  of  the  University,  made  brief  remarks,  chiefly  of  reminis- 
cence. The  exercises  of  the  afternoon  closed  with  the  benediction, 
pronounced  by  Rev.  Dr.  Fisk,  of  Chicago.  An  opportunity  was  then 
given  the  audience  to  inspect  the  library  building. 


19 


In  the  evening,  at  the  First  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  a  large 
audience  was  assembled  to  hear  the  address  of  Mr.  Winsor.  The 
exercises  were  as  follows: — 

ORGAN  VOLUNTARY— Professor  P.  C.  Lutkin. 

INVOCATION  — Rev.  Dr.  Miner  Raymond. 

CHORUS  —  "  The  Lord  is  Great,"  (Rhigini,) 

Choir  of  St.  James'  Church,  Chicago. 

ADDRESS  —  "  T/ie  Development  of  the  Library!^ 

Justin  Winsor,  LL.D.,  Librarian  of  Harvard  University. 

CHORUS  — "/^a/W«y«A  Chorus,"  (Handel,) 
Choir  of  St.  James'  Church. 

benediction. 


THE    DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE    LIBRARY. 

Address  by  Justin  Winsor,  LL.D., 
librarian  of  harvard  university. 

It  is  nearly  two  centuries  and  a  quarter  since  a  tiny  college  of 
the  wilderness  floated  along  your  water-front.  It  carried  two  teachers. 
One,  a  black-robed  priest,  had  passed  a  novitiate  in  Latin  and  Greek, 
and  had  drunk  inspiration  from  the  fountain  of  the  Fathers.  His 
matured  life  had  been  passed  in  the  woods,  a  student  of  its  wild  deni- 
zens. He  had  sought  the  mysteries  of  their  varied  tongues  till  he 
could  embalm  in  native  cadences  the  great  truths  of  his  religion.  His 
faith  was  symbolized  in  the  crucifix  dangling  from  his  neck.  Within 
the  folds  of  his  cassock  rested  the  well-thumbed  manual  of  his  hourly 
devotion, —  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  his  saintly  life,  the  little  library 
of  this  pristine  university. 

His  companion  was  a  vigorous  spirit,  equally  adept  in  driving  a 
bargain  for  pelts  with  the  savage  and  in  discerning  the  points  of  the 
compass  in  a  lichened  tree-bole.  He  could  tell  what  to  expect  in  the 
up-country  by  scanning  the  river  which  came  from  it.  His  percep- 
tions could  place  the  great  divides  which  turned  the  river  channels  to 


20 

one  ocean  or  the  other.  The  outward  aspects  of  nature  were  to  him 
what  supreme  truths  and  human  aspirations  were  to  the  priest. 

Thus  this  little  primitive  college,  borne  on  the  littoral  current 
which  sweeps  to  the  great  southern  bend  of  your  life-giving  lake, 
fitly  prefigures  the  counter  resources  in  mind  and  matter,  which  form 
the  bewildering  diversity  of  our  modern,  encompassing  education. 
In  the  folds  of  our  devotion  to  all  that  is  helpful  in  the  emanation  of 
man's  intellect,  and  beneath  the  symbol  of  our  faith,  we  lay  nearest 
our  heart  the  wealth  of  our  libraries,  just  as  the  devoted  Marquette 
enfolded  the  spiritual  manual  upon  his  palpitating  breast.  In  the 
lessons  of  our  laboratories  we  find  the  prescriptions  of  natural  law,  just 
as  Joliet  found  them  in  the  air,  the  water,  and  the  sky. 

Two  centuries  and  a  quarter  of  struggling  and  vitalizing  growth 
has  done  this  for  us  and  little  more.  Education  means  with  us  as  it 
did  to  those  pioneers,  a  preparation  to  subdue  the  earth,  and  to  drink 
the  libations  poured  by  a  bountiful  past.  From  the  breviary  of  the 
missionary  to  the  possibilities  of  our  modern  libraries  is  a  reach  only 
equalled  by  the  passage  from  the  simple  instruction  of  those  lowly 
teachers  to  the  complex  variety  of  the  new  learning. 

There  are  few  more  interesting  problems  to  the  student  of  this 
new  learning  than  the  part  which  libraries  are  playing  in  its  develop- 
ment. There  are  two  necessary  concomitants  of  a  large  collection  of 
books.  These  are  a  bibliographical  apparatus  and  a  growth  of  special 
departments. 

Without  the  aid  of  bibliographical  studies  no  large  library  can  be 
well  formed,  and  no  such  collection  can  be  properly  handled. 

No  library  but  those  whose  distinction  is  their  size,  can  attract 
much  attention,  unless  it  becomes  exceptional  in  some  directions. 

Bibliography  and  specialism  are  also  the  two  readiest  props 
of  scholarship,  and  nowhere  more  than  with  us  ;  and  this  is  particu- 
larly true  of  bibliography.  The  learned  of  the  old  world  look  with 
some  surprise  on  the  recent  advances  in  this  respect  which  have  been 
made  in  this  country.  We  have  seen  and  are  seeing  our  account  in 
it.  Such  studies  have  enabled  us  to  outgrow  the  reproach,  which 
fifty  years  ago  and  more  was  a  common  one,  that  nowhere  in  this 
country  could  one  verify  the  first  class  investigations  carried  on  by 
European  scholars.  The  late  George  Livermore,  in  1850,  emphasized 
the  stigma  by  saying — and  he  spoke  the  truth — that  so  cardinal  a 


21 

little  book  in  the  creation  of  the  Yankee  character  as  The  New 
Englatid  Primer  could  nowhere  in  this  country  be  historically  con- 
sidered, because  of  the  lack  of  books  necessary  to  elucidate  the 
allusions  in  it.  Mr.  Justice  Story,  speaking  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Harvard  library,  said  the  same  thing  of  Gibbon's  great  history.  If 
this  was  more  a  reproach  then  than  now,  it  should  be  remembered, 
that  the  first  duty  of  a  new  country  is  to  establish  a  good  average  of 
education,  and  that  the  creation  of  signal  instances  of  the  ripest 
scholarship  comes  later.  A  country  like  ours,  receiving  a  constant 
influx  of  ill-educated  aliens,  has  a  more  conspicuous  duty  to  the  state 
in  making  good  citizens  of  them,  than  in  creating  pure  scholarship. 
Wealth  creating  a  leisured  class,  the  patrons  and  purveyors  of  learn- 
ing, has  only  come  to  us  in  a  conspicuous  way  since  our  civil  war, 
and  it  has  brought  with  it  the  meed  of  scholarship. 

It  by  no  means  follows  that  the  creation  of  a  large  body  of 
educated  people  is  the  sole  source  of  remarkable  scholarship.  The 
scholar  may  easily  appear  of  his  own  option ;  but  he  is  buttressed  in  a 
community  that  respects  him.  I  met  a  few  years  ago,  one  of  the  best 
students  of  our  constitutional  history  writing  his  book  in  a  society 
that  offered  him  no  encouragement  and  was  destitute  of  libraries. 
There  was  something  pathetic  in  his  joy  for  an  hour's  intercourse 
with  one  who  could  give  him  a  sympathetic  response.  Such  a 
student,  buying  his  own  books  and  hampered  in  the  selection  of  them, 
contrasted  with  one  familiar  with  the  resources  of  a  well-equipped 
public  library,  may  mean  two  things.  It  may  signify  a  debasement 
of  the  intellectual  vantage  ground,  so  as  to  affect  scholarship ;  or 
what  is  occasionally  the  case,  it  may  put  the  scholarly  mind  on 
its  mettle,  and  nourish  its  best  endeavors.  But  such  isolation  from 
books  is  never  a  safe  experiment,  and  never  a  successful  test  of 
mental  endeavor  in  more  than  a  few  introspective  studies. 

The  amassment  of  large  private  libraries  is  no  longer  a  necessity 
of  scholarship.  The  student  is  more  and  more  learning  to  depend  on 
large  collections  of  books  which  the  public  fosters.  There  has  been 
in  the  older  communities  a  decided  check  of  late  years  to  the  forma- 
tion of  private  collections.  I  am  told  by  law  publishers  at  the  East, 
that  it  is  the  western  lawyer  who  buys  books,  while  the  eastern 
advocate  depends  on  the  social  law-libraries. 

It  is  my  observation  that  with  classes  four  or  five  times  as  large 


22 

as  they  were  in  my  day  at  Harvard,  the  number  of  young  men 
among  the  students  laying  the  foundation  of  their  own  collection  of 
books  is  fewer  now  than  then.  It  is  notorious  that  to-day  in  England 
the  collecting  of  books  by  the  educated  and  leisured  classes  has  gone 
by.  If  a  man  is  found  forming  a  library,  he  is  a  banker  or  a  brewer 
come  to  the  financial  front  who  thinks  it  a  passport  to  social  distinc- 
tion. Earl  Spencer  told  me  a  few  years  ago  that  he  never  added  a 
book  to  the  famous  library  then  at  Althorpe,  and  as  I  looked  it 
through,  I  could  well  believe  there  had  not  a  book  been  put  in  it  for 
a  half  century.  I  have  looked  at  some  of  the  best  libraries  in 
English  country  houses,  and  I  have  found  but  one  or  two,  notably  that 
of  the  Duke  of  Westminster,  which  indicated  that  the  best  current 
literature  as  distinct  from  bibliographical  fads,  was  contributing  to 
their  growth.  The  average  English  gentleman,  with  the  training  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  is  content  to  depend  on  a  weekly  box  from 
Mudie.  Twenty  years  ago,  the  London  publisher,  Pickering,  said 
that  he  could  not  count  on  selling  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
copies  of  a  good,  new  book  ;  and  Quaritch  to-day  says  he  could  not 
live,  except  for  his  American  orders. 

Meanwhile  the  British  Museum  is  printing  sixty  thousand  titles  a 
year  of  its  current  accessions.  Leaving  out  of  account  the  mass  of 
books  in  foreign  tongues,  it  was  recently  held  by  a  competent  judge 
that  the  British  Museum  did  not  have  more  than  half  (or  at  most 
three-fifths)  of  the  books  in  English  which  have  been  printed.  It  is 
not  then  too  much  to  say  that  the  best  library  of  English-speaking 
peoples  is  more  or  less  of  a  makeshift.  Mr.  BuUen,  the  late  Keeper 
of  the  Printed  Books  in  that  library,  recognized  this  when  he 
testified  before  the  Society  of  Arts,  that  on  few  or  no  subjects  to 
be  investigated,  could  the  British  Museum  afford  the  scholar  half\.\\e. 
necessary  books.  The  late  Winter  Jones,  for  many  years  its  principal 
librarian,  told  me  once  that  not  one  thorough  student  in  ten  could 
find  there  all  he  wanted ;  and  yet  the  British  Museum  is  said  to 
contain  not  much  short  of  two  million  volumes,  and  is  possibly 
exceeded  only  by  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  in  Paris.  I  have  learned 
to  distrust  comparative  library  statistics ;  but  we  cannot  certainly  on 
American  soil  point  to  any  collection  one-third  as  large. 

The  growth  of  American  libraries,  however,  has  been  rapid,  and 
far  beyond  expectation.     Five  and  thirty  years  ago,  when  the  Boston 


2J 

Public  Library  was  finally  organized,  it  was  calculated  that  a  building 
capable  of  holding  two  hundred  thousand  volumes  would  suffice  for  a 
century.  In  less  than  twenty  years,  it  fell  to  my  lot  (being  then  in 
charge  of  that  institution),  to  double  its  capacity,  and  now,  in  less 
than  forty  years,  or  much  less  than  half  the  allotted  time,  it  has  been 
found  necessary  to  build  a  building  of  eight  or  ten  times  the  capacity 
of  the  old  one.  Less  than  a  score  of  years  ago  the  library  of 
Harvard  College  was  given  an  addition  to  its  building  to  double  its 
shelf-room.  To-day  it  has  to  store  away  in  boxes  its  superfluous 
books.  Not  long  ago  I  was  directed  by  the  President  of  the 
University  to  plan  a  new  building  with  everything  commensurate  for 
a  college  of  five  thousand  students ;  and  the  result  was  a  scale  of 
structure  which  would  give  ample  table  room  to  six  hundred  readers  at 
the  same  moment  and  would  hold  a  million  and  a  half  of  volumes 
with  a  prospective  capacity  of  three  millions  —  a  great  hive,  the  queen 
bee  of  which  is  a  single  folio  come  down  to  us  through  more  than  two 
centuries  and  a  half,  the  sole  relic  of  the  library  of  John  Harvard. 

Twenty  years  ago  Mr.  Spofford  reckoned  that  the  library  of 
Congress  would  reach  half  a  million  of  volumes  at  the  present  time. 
It  more  than  reached  it  in  eight  years.  It  was  but  the  other  day  that 
the  final  stone  was  laid  on  the  great  building  at  Washington  destined 
to  hold  the  principal  American  library.  The  structure  is  claimed  to 
have  a  capacity  of  at  least  five  or  six  millions  of  volumes ;  but  I 
suspect  that  with  modern  devices  for  compact  stowage,  its  capability 
as  a  storehouse  may  be  carried  much  beyond  these  figures.  Perhaps 
it  can  be  made  to  reach  an  extent  something  like  five  times  the  size 
of  any  existing  collection  of  books,  or  just  about  equal  to  what  a 
library  must  be  if  it  is  to  contain  every  book  that  has  been  printed. 

If  no  great  library  has  to-day  more  than  a  quarter  or  a  fifth  of 
the  vast  product  of  the  press  during  these  four  and  a  half  centuries 
since  Gutenberg,  is  there  a  chance  that  in  this  new  world  we  can  hope 
to  bring  from  their  obscurity  all  that  is  not  irrecoverably  lost  of  these 
other  millions  of  volumes  ?  The  abyss  of  ages  has  doubtless  swal- 
lowed some  part  of  this  literature  never  to  give  it  up,  but  it  is  probable 
that  the  greater  part  of  it  is  scattered  in  many  libraries  or  in  obscure 
household  repositories  and  only  needs  to  be  brought  together. 

American  competition  in  the  European  bookmarts,  which  has 
done  so  much  in  fifty  years  not  only  to  enhance  prices,  but  to  bring 


24 

books  from  their  hiding  places,  may  do  something  to  recover  for  us 
this  vast  reserve  of  literature.  The  great  area  of  our  national  library 
building,  however,  is  doubtless  to  be  filled  chiefly  by  the  teeming 
products  of  the  press  in  the  future.  Something  like  forty  thousand 
or  fifty  thousand  volumes  of  all  kinds  a  year  pass  into  the  library  of 
Congress  under  the  American  copyright  law  alone. 

These  vast  figures  make  the  problems  which  the  coming  librarians 
are  to  confront  greatly  interesting.  There  was  a  time  when  English- 
men thought  the  Bodleian  contained  every  book  worth  having.  Fifty 
years  ago  Panizzi  came  to  the  British  Museum,  fresh  from  an 
acquaintance  with  what  the  great  continental  collections  preserved. 
He  drew  up  a  list  of  that  library's  deficiencies  and  British  insularity 
stood  aghast  at  the  revelation.  The  assiduity  of  Jones,  Bond, 
Thompson,  BuUen,  and  Garnett  has  ever  since  been  doing  much  to 
remedy  the  defect. 

These  future  problems,  if  great  and  in  some  ways  difficult,  are 
far  from  being  appalling.  Great  occasions  produce  great  resources, 
and  historical  crises  raise  up  adequate  men.  I  see  no  reason  to 
believe  that  learning  and  education  will  not  be  in  the  future  more 
deftly  as  well  as  more  exhaustively  served,  in  an  administrative  sense, 
with  these  enormous  segregations  of  books  than  they  are  to-day  with 
our  far  smaller  collections.  I  see  no  reason  to  believe  that  libraries 
can  outgrow  our  ability  to  handle  them. 

We  have  not  yet  reached  the  capabilities  of  cataloguing  and 
indexing,  and  have  got  to  use  more  frequently  the  printed  title,  not 
altogether  for  its  legibility  but  for  its  compactness.  When  the  British 
Museum  authorities  saw  that  their  prospective  nine  thousand  huge 
volumes  of  its  MS.  catalogue  were  going  to  take  for  their  convenient 
display  a  space  three  times  the  size  of  its  own  reading  room,  they 
were  forced  into  print.  It  was  cheaper  than  building  a  new  structure. 
We  may  be  sure  also  that  we  have  not  begun  in  mechanical  devices 
to  take  advantage  of  all  that  the  Edisons  have  yet  done,  or  may  do, 
to  find  appliances  to  diminish  labor  and  expedite  service.  Twenty 
years  ago  I  outlined  an  automatic  device  for  the  delivery  of  books ; 
and  its  principles  have  been  readapted  in  a  moving  endless  chain, 
which  is  to  render  rapid  the  distribution  of  books  in  the  new  library 
at  Washington. 

I  look  to  the  development  in  such  directions  that  will  make  the 


25 

library  of  the  twentieth  century,  with  a  capacity  and  demand  quadru- 
pled over  those  of  to-day,  more  easily  administered  in  the  delivery  of 
books  and  more  thoroughly  subordinated  to  intellectual  requirements 
in  their  catalogues,  than  any  small  library  is  to-day.  Such  develop- 
ments will  come  in  time.  To  Franklin  the  world  owed,  one  hundred 
years  ago,  a  step  in  university  extension,  when  he  founded  the  Phila- 
delphia library,  more  imposing  than  any  that  is  making  to-day. 
When  he  tamed  the  lightning,  we  may  yet  see  what  he  rendered 
possible  through  electricity  for  library  administration. 

Nearly  a  score  of  years  ago  I  was  present  in  a  small  circle  of 
his  friends  when  Graham  Bell  made  a  rude  instrument,  in  the  rooms 
of  the  American  Academy  in  Boston,  give  out  "  Home,  Sweet  Home," 
as  played  on  a  distant  piano.  A  year  or  two  later,  after  I  was  one  of 
the  first  to  put  the  telephone  to  practical  use  in  the  Boston  Public 
Library,  I  recounted  its  possible  future  to  a  dinner  party  at  Althorpe. 
The  incredulous  English  thought  my  presumptuous  fancies  but  the 
foolish  rampage  of  an  irrepressible  Yankee.  We  know  what  has 
come  of  it. 

We  don't  know  what  will  yet  come  of  the  phonograph.  Edison's 
first  instrument  was  sent  to  Boston  to  be  shown  to  some  gentlemen 
before  its  character  had  been  made  known.  I  never  expect  again  to 
see  quite  such  awe  on  human  faces  as  when  Gray's  Elegy  was  repeated 
by  an  insensate  box  to  a  company  of  unsuspecting  listeners.  I  look  to 
see  its  marvellous  capabilities  yet  utilized  in  the  service  of  the  librarian. 

The  scientists  tell  us  that  palpitations  once  put  upon  the  air 
never  die  ;  and  that  had  we  instruments  delicate  enough  to  register 
them  we  might  yet  hear  the  footfalls  of  Plato  walking  in  the  Academy; 
the  denunciations  of  Brutus  on  the  rostrum  ;  the  prayer  of  Columbus 
at  San  Salvador  ;  the  periods  of  Garrick  at  Drury  Lane  ;  the  calm 
judgments  of  Washington  in  the  Federal  convention.  Perhaps  we 
might  listen  more  attentively  yet  to  the  splash  of  the  paddle  of  Mar- 
quette and  Joliet  in  that  infant  college,  wandering  along  these  neigh- 
boring shores.  We  must  wait  many  developments  of  the  way  in 
which  science  is  to  walk  lock-stepped  with  the  ardent  librarian. 

This  library  of  the  future  is  doubtless  to  be  very  costly,  and  we 
have  got  to  compare  the  game  and  the  candle.  The  British  Museum 
is  to  spend  half  a  million  dollars  in  printing  its  three  million  titles. 
A  recently  erected   library  building  is   lighted  at  an  annual  expense 


26 

of  gi  5,000.  Whether  the  necessity  of  such  expense  is  wise  may  be  a 
question.  Nevertheless  a  great  library  is  an  expensive  necessity,  and 
it  is  far  from  easy  for  the  man  of  affairs  to  comprehend  it.  The 
processes  of  bulking,  which  reduce  averages  of  expense  in  commer- 
cial measures,  work  quite  otherwise  in  the  cost  of  maintaining  libra- 
ries. I  have  known  a  good  many  instances  of  men,  wise  in  making 
money,  foolish  in  making  libraries.  A  certain  rich  man  founded  a 
college  and  selected  a  librarian.  This  officer  proposed  to  buy  a 
bibliographical  apparatus,  to  aid  him  in  selecting  a  library.  "  No," 
said  Croesus,  "  I  don't  know  anything  about  bibliography.  Buy 
books  as  you  happen  to  want  them  1  " 

A  man  of  wide  experience  in  affairs  consulted  me  about  a  trust  for 
a  library  in  a  metropolitan  city.  He  had  no  doubt  that  the  money 
would  enable  him  to  lead  the  world  in  libraries,  and  that  the  start  of 
the  great  Paris  library  with  its  two  million  and  more  of  books  was  no 
discouragement.  He  would  not  only  equal  the  old  libraries  in  books, 
but  he  would  have  their  MSS.  copied,  and  would  even  print  such  as 
no  publisher  would  touch.  When  I  examined  the  balance  sheet  of 
the  trust,  I  found  that  after  he  had  built  his  building,  he  could  not 
compete  for  income,  with  a  third-class  institution,  as  libraries  go. 

A  distinguished  advocate  of  the  chief  bar  of  the  United  States  in 
attacking  the  same  trust  in  behalf  of  the  heir-at-law,  is  said  to  have 
claimed  that  such  an  endowment  as  the  trustees  held,  was  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  needs  of  a  library,  and  it  would  soon  find  that  there 
were  no  books  left  to  buy.  Learned  as  this  counsel  was,  he  never 
suspected  that  there  were  still  five  or  six  millions  of  books  which  the 
biggest  libraries  had  never  yet  succeeded  in  buying. 

A  distinguished  Anglo-American,  who  spread  his  benefactions  on 
two  continents,  employed  an  agent  to  gather  a  library  for  his 
native  town.  He  restricted  him  to  an  average  cost  per  volume  of  one 
dollar  and  no  more.  I  remember  the  distress  of  this  agent  when  he 
told  me  of  the  bushel  of  cheap  books  he  had  to  buy  in  order  to  give 
him  the  chance  of  buying  a  few  more  costly  and  indispensable  books 
of  reference,  and  still  keep  his  average  at  a  dollar.  It  is  certainly 
one  thing  to  bank  for  governments  wisely,  and  quite  another  to  cater 
with  sagacity  to  the  intellectual  wants  of  your  native  village. 

But  the  millionaire  has  his  mission,  if  he  is  not  always  wise  in  it, 
for  he  must  be  depended  upon  to  do  what  learning  will  not  do. 


2; 

From  a  million  to  two  millions  of  dollars,  and  more,  have  been 
privately  bestowed  on  American  communities  in  the  endowing  of 
libraries,  in  six  or  eight  different  instances  within  a  score  of  years.  We 
can  have  nothing  in  this  country  like  the  sequestrations  which  have  so 
conspicuously  augmented  some  of  the  chief  libraries  of  Europe,  but  of 
late  we  have  begun  to  experience  the  gravitation  of  private  collections 
of  special  interest  toward  our  public  libraries.  It  was  a  saying  of 
Thomas  Watt,  the  bibliographer,  that  the  excuse  for  the  existence  of 
private  collections,  is  that  they  may  eventually  be  engulfed  in  public 
ones.  We  have  seen  scholarship  better  equipped  among  us  for  what 
Mr.  Lenox  studiously  preserved  for  us  ;  for  what  the  Barton  collec- 
tion has  done  for  Shakespearian  studies  in  Boston  ;  for  what  the  White 
collection  has  done  for  students  of  the  French  Revolution  and  the 
Reformation  at  Cornell  ;  for  the  Dante  collections  at  Cambridge  and 
at  Ithaca  ;  the  garnering  of  Von  Mohl  and  Bluntschli  at  Yale  and  at 
Johns  Hopkins  ;  the  Marsh  collection  at  Burlington  ;  the  geological 
and  geographical  library  of  Professor  Whitney  at  Harvard; "and  the 
Spanish  collection  of  George  Ticknor  at  the  public  library  of  Boston, 
— not  to  name  others.  It  is  in  Americana  however  that  our  libraries 
can  naturally  best  compare  with  those  of  the  old  world.  The  Ebeling, 
Warden,  Bancroft,  and  Force  collections  have  put  all  students  of 
American  history  under  obligations.  They  have  seen  with  regret  the 
Prescott,  Brinley,  Barlow,  Field,  and  Murphy  collections  scattered 
under  the  hammer,  and  cherish  the  hope  that  the  Carter-Brown 
and  Charles  Deane  collections  may  yet  be  possessed  by  the  public. 

The  world  has  few  more  precious  possessions  than  the  books 
of  a  scholar,  tinged  with  his  mental  contact.  I  remember  seeing  once 
in  the  London  Library  in  St.  James'  Square,  a  closet  full  of  books, 
which  had  been  lent  to  Carlyle,  and  carefully  preserved,  because 
when  he  read  them  he  had  entered  his  pungent  exclamations  and 
pithy  comments  on  their  margins.  In  recognition  of  this  audacious 
habit  it  had  been  the  policy  of  the  librarian  to  lend  to  Carlyle  every 
new  book  which  he  thought  would  interest  him,  because  he  was  sure 
to  scatter  his  disdain  on  its  blank  spaces.  What  these  marginalia 
were,  we  can  imagine  if  we  glance  at  the  books  streaked  with 
his  belligerent  spirit,  and  shown  in  the  collection  used  in  writing 
his  Cromwell  and  Frederic,  which  he  bequeathed  to  the  Harvard 
Library. 


28 

The  most  significant  development  of  the  college  library  during 
the  last  score  of  years  is  that  which  has  worked  parallel  with  seminary 
methods,  and  which  has  made  laboratories  out  of  collections  of 
books.  The  elective  system  and  the  dispelling  of  rote-learning  have 
reacted  on  the  library,  and  the  library  has  influenced  them. 

I  may  be  in  error,  but  I  venture  to  say  that  this  close  mating  of 
library  uses  with  college  work,  first  took  shape  in  Harvard  College 
library,  not  twenty  years  ago.  When  the  process  of  closely  applying 
particular  books  to  help  instruction  was  then  proposed,  it  was  not 
received  with  much  favor,  and  most  of  the  teachers  discredited  the 
innovation.  The  plan  was  a  simple  one.  The  teacher  was  to  name  to 
the  librarian  the  books  to  which  in  his  lectures  he  was  to  refer,  and 
these  taken  from  their  places  in  the  general  library  were  to  be  made 
accessible  to  the  students  in  a  given  alcove.  My  recollection  is  that 
not  more  than  a  score  or  two  of  books  were  thus  designated  in  the 
beginning  by  two  or  three  instructors.  It  took  a  year  or  two  to  make 
a  real  start ;  but  to-day  not  a  teacher,  of  the  two  or  three  hundred  at 
work  in  the  college,  but  is  eager  for  this  chance  to  promote  his  pupils' 
study.  So  instead  of  two  or  three  dozen  books,  we  count  now  on 
the  shelves  seven  or  eight  thousand  volumes,  particularly  applicable 
to  the  instruction.  With  allied  reference  books,  there  are  twenty-five 
to  thirty  thousand  volumes  open  to  the  immediate  contact  of  the 
interested  student.  The  system  has  gone  a  step  farther  in  the  crea- 
tion of  class-room  libraries,  close  at  hand  in  the  hours  of  instruction, 
and  ten  or  a  dozen  of  these  supplemental  collections,  show  from  a  few 
score  to  a  few  thousand  volumes  each.  All  this  has  conduced  to  an 
enormous  increase  in  the  use  of  the  books,  and  our  statistics  reveal 
that  a  very  small  proportion  of  the  students  are  not  frequenters  of 
the  library. 

Nor  is  this  all  which  is,  in  these  latter  days,  done  to  facilitate 
the  use  of  the  books.  Systematic  instruction  in  bibliographical 
research  keeps  in  the  van  of  every  subject  a  cloud  of  skirmishers,  who 
bring  in  title  after  title  for  the  consideration  of  the  library  authori- 
ties. Thus  the  whole  system  becomes  a  practical  endowment  of 
research,  and  the  library  becomes  a  central  agency  in  college  work. 
It  "teaches  the  teachers,"  as  President  Eliot  has  said  of  it. 

There  is  at  this  point  one  pertinent  question:  —  With  this  import- 
ance in  the  broad  system  of  instruction,  does  the  library  always  get  its 


29 

due  share  of  the  money  resources  of  our  colleges  ?  Are  not  too  often 
the  advantages  of  its  improvement  weighed  against  those  of  a  new 
chair  ?  If  another  institution  creates  a  professorship  of  Tamil,  cannot 
the  library  wait  till  we  create  otir  chair  of  Tamil  ?  Do  the  authorities 
always  consider  that  every  diminution  of  the  library's  essential 
allowance  is  simply  a  check  upon  the  proficiency  of  existitig  chairs  ? 

Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  the  library  is  the  very  core  of  the 
University?  I  once  said,  "The  library  should  be  to  the  college  much 
what  the  dining-room  is  to  the  home  —  the  place  to  invigorate  the 
system  under  cheerful  conditions  with  a  generous  fare  and  good 
digestion."  There  cannot  be  too  much  care  bestowed  in  making  this 
place  of  intellectual  sustenance  attractive.  Grateful  appearances 
beget  grateful  humors. 

The  fact  is  a  librarian  needs  every  advantage  he  can  possibly 
command,  if  he  is  going  to  make  his  library  of  the  utmost  profit. 
He  must  be  himself  a  standing  invitation  to  the  library's  hospitality. 
I  remember  one  day  shortly  after  I  took  charge  of  the  library  at 
Cambridge,  seeing  an  old  man,  bearing  a  head  that  no  one  could 
forget,  with  its  black,  cavernous  eyes  and  white,  shaggy  locks  — 
the  most  picturesque  character  that  we  have  ever  had  in  our  Harvard 
faculty  —  I  remember  seeing  this  old  man  climbing  clumsily  up  a 
steep  stair  to  a  cock-loft.  I  asked  where  he  was  going,  and  was  told 
that  in  the  crowded  state  of  the  library,  the  collection  of  books  in 
modern  Greek,  being  used  by  no  one  else,  had  been  placed  in  this 
upper  loft  and  that  it  was  the  old  man's  habit  to  go  there  and  seek 
quiet  among  the  books.  Shortly  after  I  inspected  the  collection  and 
found  it  a  motley  assemblage  of  volumes  in  bad  binding,  or  in  none. 
I  ordered  them  to  be  tidily  bound,  and  placed  in  a  fitting  room. 
Thereafter  Professor  Sophocles  was  my  friend. 

"  I  want  to  tell  you  a  story,"  said  he  to  me  one  day,  in  that  deep, 
sonorous  tone,  which  gave  his  talk  so  much  Rembrandtish  character. 
"  My  father,"  he  went  on,  "  wished  to  be  chosen  the  chief  man  of  the 
village  where  he  lived  in  Greece.  There  was  another  man  who  had 
the  same  wish.  One  night  there  came  to  my  father's  house  two  men, 
scowling  and  saying  nothing.  They  had  knives  in  their  girdles. 
'  How  much  did  my  rival  promise  to  pay  you  if  you  killed  me  ? ' 
asked  my  father.  They  told  him.  '  Humph  ! '  he  replied,  '  I  will 
pay  you  twice  as  much  to  kill   him  ! '     They  left  on  a  new  errand." 


30 

This  was  the  way  my  venerable  friend  had  of  making  a  ghoulish 
tale  serve  for  a  bit  of  advice.  If  an  inquirer  comes  to  the  librarian  to 
lay  him  bare  to  his  knife,  send  him  away  with  twice  the  reward. 
Compound  if  you  can  the  interest  on  the  visitor's  investment. 

A  librarian  often  wonders  that  so  many  students  can  go  through 
a  four  years'  course  without  really  becoming  proficients  in  the  use  of 
books  ;  without  learning  that  it  is  not  always  the  reading  of  books 
that  most  enriches  ;  but  the  skillful  glancing  at  them.  We  do  not 
want  to  go  a  journey  with  a  stallion  to  find  if  he  can  throw  his  feet  in 
a  two-twenty  gait.  We  must  jockey  in  books.  Make  them  show 
their  paces  over  a  half-hour  course.  Leave  the  plodding  reader  to  be 
lost  in  a  bewilderment  of  sentences. 

It  is  a  librarian's  luxury  when  a  man  comes  to  him  who  knows 
how  to  master  a  book  and  to  dominate  a  library.  If  our  colleges 
would  pay  more  attention  to  the  methods  by  which  a  subject  is 
deftly  attacked  and  would  teach  the  true  use  of  encyclopaedic  and 
bibliographical  helps,  they  would  do  much  to  make  the  library  more 
serviceable. 

The  time  lost  in  floundering  among  books  would  fringe  the 
dreariest  existence  with  many  graceful  amplitudes  of  learning,  if  men 
were  taught  to  investigate  as  they  are  taught  to  swim.  Floundering 
is  not  study.  Then  there  is  the  waste  of  time  and  energy  in  rediscov- 
ering what  is  already  known.  The  wise  student  looks  for  the  blazed 
pathways  of  those  who  have  gone  before  him. 

A  university  scope  in  instruction,  election  in  studies,  and  the 
pursuit  of  special  aims,  are  certainly  doing  much  to  make  us  produce 
creditable  scholars  and  enlarge  the  bounds  of  knowledge ;  but  I  trust 
that  we  may  never  cease  to  value  the  generous  and  all-round  training 
of  the  small  college.  It  is  of  inestimable  value  to  us  Americans  that 
we  have  these  small  colleges,  and  I  always  feel  a  pang  when  one  of 
them  puts  on  university  airs.  It  is  the  function  of  such  colleges  and 
their  libraries  to  make  educated  gentlemen,  to  whom  no  knowledge  is 
superfluous,  who  respond  to  every  intellectual  sympathy,  and  who 
make  of  social  intercourse  a  well-spring  of  learned  delights.  It  is  the 
function  of  the  universities  to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  knowledge, 
to  make  one  acquirement  the  stepping-stone  to  another,  to  lay  tribute 
upon  nature  and  probe  the  obscurities  of  learning.  Heaven  defend 
that  they  should  not  make  gentlemen  and  scholars  ;  but  the  amenities 


31 

of  our  social  existence  are  much  more  dependent  on  cultured  gentle- 
men whose  education  does  not  aspire  to  the  deeper  scholarship. 

I  know  of  a  university  town  where  the  atmosphere  is  saturated 
with  the  damps  of  specialisms.  One  wonders  jf  Sanskrit,  and  hypnot- 
ism, and  electro-dynamics  exist  for  the  world's  sake,  or  the  world 
exists  for  them. 

It  is  the  fashion  of  this  community  to  maintain  dinner  clubs 
among  its  professors,  and  once  a  fortnight  these  clubs  listen  to 
an  essay  on  the  particular  specialty  of  their  host.  He  gives  us  the 
latest  intelligence  in  his  little  world.  Somebody  has  discovered  an 
abnormal  vein  in  a  butterfly's  wing.  Another  puts  his  lens  on  a 
literary  critic  and  makes  him  hateful.  A  third  tells  us  how  a  Roman 
folded  his  napkin. 

It  is  a  rule  of  these  clubs  that  there  should  be  no  two  members 
devoted  to  like  studies,  and  when  the  essay  is  read,  each  of  these 
specialists  trains  his  own  little  Gatling  gun  upon  the  poor  essayist. 
The  show  is  sometimes  brilliant ;  sometimes  it  wearies  a  trifle.  The 
scintillations  sometimes  light  up  unwonted  depths,  and  I  go  home 
in  a  state  of  amazement  at  the  multiplicity  of  the  mind's 
angles.  Intellectual  .  life  certainly  gets  new  significance  as  one 
vantage  ground  after  another  is  brought  into  use  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  a  topic. 

I  go  again  to  a  table  full  of  gentlemen  who  make  no  profession 
to  advanced  learning.  I  have  on  my  right  a  banker  who  has  just 
read  a  novel,  in  which  he  finds  a  misconception  of  a  curb-stone  opera- 
tor. Some  one  across  speaks  of  an  horticultural  exhibition  and  my 
friend  tells  the  story  of  the  introduction  of  the  Chrysanthemum  from 
Japan,  and  is  led  to  speak  of  Parkman's  success  in  the  hybridizing  of 
lilies.  My  left  hand  neighbor  says  he  has  been  at  Bellemead  and 
ridden  behind  Iroquois.  My  Wall  street  friend  knows  the  pedigree 
of  Iroquois  and  tells  me  who  his  grandsire  was.  Our  host  is  reminded 
of  a  celebrated  horse  of  Colonial  days,  which  carried  General  John 
Winslow  on  some  famous  ride.  My  moneyed  neighbor  immediately 
fills  out  the  story  of  the  Acadians,  and  traces  back  the  tale  of  the 
Cajeans  in  Louisiana.  "  My  friend,"  said  I  turning  to  him,  "  what 
don't  you  know  about."  "Oh,  I  graduated  at  a  little  college  in  the 
New  England  hills,  where  we  turn  out  educated  gentlemen  who 
know  a  little  of  everything  and   not  a  great  deal  of  anything,    who 


32 

can  talk  with  a  bandit  or  a  Sioux  and  make  him  believe  he  is  talking 
with  a  brother." 

These  little  dinner-table  experiences  illustrate  what  is  the  differ- 
ence between  the  educated  gentleman  and  the  special  scholar.  Is 
not  one  as  necessary  to  our  ripest  civilization  as  the  other  ? 

I  have  said  nothing  of  the  relations  of  the  college  and  books  to 
the  most  momentous  problem  of  our  day.  Squirarchy  and  birth,  which 
ruled  our  nation  once,  have  given  place  to  a  new  order.  Political 
economy  in  its  sociological  aspects  has  become  a  study  of  contem- 
porary manifestations.  It  is  no  longer  the  geologist  alone  who  takes 
his  pupils  afield.  The  professor  of  social  economics  finds  his  "strata  " 
in  graded  benefactions,  and  his  "faults"  in  broken  lives.  We  cry 
much  about  education  as  the  safety-valve  in  this  mighty  change,  and 
say  that  university  extension  is  a  saving  grace.  Along  with  it  all,  has 
come  the  wonderful  growth  of  our  free-library  system.  In  Massa- 
chusetts the  state  stands  ready  to  help  any  town  to  have  its  library, 
and  few  there  are  without  them.  All  this  cannot,  I  think,  mean  that 
books  and  education  are  losing  their  hold  on  the  people. 

We  are  sometimes  alarmed  at  the  coming  among  us  of  vast 
hordes  of  aliens.  We  should  not  forget  that  in  this  country  we  have 
passed  through  just  such  disturbing  conditions  before,  when  our  life 
was  not  equally  well  prepared  to  deal  with  the  phenomena.  Study 
the  history  of  that  huge  wave  of  Americanization  which,  in  the  last 
century  and  in  the  early  part  of  this,  broke  like  a  sea  against  the 
Appalachians,  swept  through  their  gaps  and  moved  athwart  the  great 
valley  of  the  Mississippi,  broke  again  upon  the  Rockies  and  toppled 
down  the  Pacific  slope.  How  much  of  this  surging  was  of  alien 
blood.  Look  at  the  names  on  the  street-signs  of  every  considerable 
town  which  that  wave  has  left  stranded  in  its  passage.  I  doubt  if,  as 
our  frontiers  moved  west,  there  were  fewer  aliens  in  proportion  than 
we  find  among  us  to-day. 

I  happen  myself  to  come  of  the  ancientest  of  our  New  England 
stock.  I  can  hold  my  grandchild  on  my  knee  and  tell  it  of  its  great- 
grandfather, and  of  his  father  and  grandfather — six  generations  that  I 
have  known — as  many  as  would  carry  some  old  persons,  still  living, 
back  to  Plymouth  Rock;  and  yet  may  I  not  well  afford  to  welcome  the 
alien  who  landed  yesterday  at  Castle  Garden  ?  Of  a  family  nurtured 
on  the  sea,  I  have  come  to   nourish   my  existence  on  books.     Is  it 


33 

strange  that  I  believe  the  laborer  of  to-day  will  be  the  progenitor  of 
future  bookmen  ? 

The  students  of  Harvard  College  are  seen  now-a-days  in  the 
manual  training  school.  The  president  of  a  Southern  university  when 
he  took  me  into  the  workshops  of  his  institution  said  to  me:  "We 
found  out  in  the  civil  war  what  an  advantage  to  you  of  the  North 
was  the  spread  of  industrial  practices  among  your  people  ;  and  we  don't 
propose  to  forget  it."  If  it  was  an  advantage  in  helping  to  save  the 
Union,  can  it  be  otherwise  in  helping  to  carry  our  life  to  higher 
results  ? 

After  Mr.  Winsor's  address,  the  "Hallelujah  Chorus"  was  sung: 
the  exercises  were  then  closed  with  the  benediction,  pronounced  by 
Rev.  Dr.  Raymond. 


Of  THX 


[TJIITER! 


FivorMiwe s  tor  n  iM^t^S^  i  Ur 

Exercises 

at  the 

Z733 

opening. 

. 

^^ 

^^H 

^^^^t 

^^^^^1 

tIBRARY 


